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Brain -> RE: The puzzle of life - science versus creationism (11/30/2009 12:15:57 PM)
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When you start talking about Aristotle and Plato of course that was before Christ or before Christianity and it's my opinion that Christianity does not help people in terms of being scientific.
Christianity is usually slowing down the progress of mankind in order to protect its interests and maintain its relevance. That's why they did those bad things to Galileo like putting him in jail and it affected Copernicus.
About 1532 Copernicus had basically completed his work on the manuscript of De revolutionibus orbium coelestium; but despite urging by his closest friends, he resisted openly publishing his views, not wishing—as he confessed—to risk the scorn "to which he would expose himself on account of the novelty and incomprehensibility of his theses."[60]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolaus_Copernicus
The Greek people have made a fabulous contribution to mankind or civilization but they certainly were not Christians or Muslims or Jews, and they didn't believe in one God but several.
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Who is the they to whom you refer? And?
Here is a Wiki article on the topic.
When a ship is at the horizon its lower invisible due to Earth's curvature. This was one of the first arguments favoring a round-Earth model.
Aristotle (384 BCE - 322 BCE) was Plato's prize student and "the mind of the school."
Aristotle observed "there are stars seen in Egypt and [...] Cyprus which are not seen in the northerly regions." Since this could only happen on a curved surface, he too believed Earth was a sphere "of no great size, for otherwise the effect of so slight a change of place would not be quickly apparent." (De caelo, 298a2-10)
Aristotle provided physical and observational arguments supporting the idea of a spherical Earth:
• Every portion of the Earth tends toward the center until by compression and convergence they form a sphere. (De caelo, 297a9-21)
• Travelers going south see southern constellations rise higher above the horizon; and
• The shadow of Earth on the Moon during a lunar eclipse is round. (De caelo, 297b31-298a10)
The concepts of symmetry, equilibrium and cyclic repetition permeated Aristotle's work. In his Meteorology he divided the world into five climatic zones: two temperate areas separated by a torrid zone near the equator, and two cold inhospitable regions, "one near our upper or northern pole and the other near the ... southern pole," both impenetrable and girdled with ice (Meteorologica, 362a31-35). Although no humans could survive in the frigid zones, inhabitants in the southern temperate regions could exist.
[edit] Hellenistic era
Eratosthenes
Eratosthenes (276 BCE - 194 BCE) estimated Earth's circumference around 240 BCE. He had heard that in Syene the Sun was directly overhead at the summer solstice whereas in Alexandria it still cast a shadow. Using the differing angles the shadows made as the basis of his trigonometric calculations he estimated a circumference of around 250,000 stades. The length of a 'stade' is not precisely known, but Eratosthenes' figure only has an error of around five to ten percent.[3][4]"
vincent
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